When our very teachers are caught red-handed cheating on their own tests, America is at the very edge of disintegration.
Remember when your fifth-grade teacher seemed like the smartest person in the world? And whatever she told you had to be 100 percent true, beyond question? Could you even imagine that she would deliberately, intentionally mislead you? Or that she would ever cheat on her own tests? Probably not.
As I was finishing high school, and pondering what profession I might pursue, I knew that above all I wanted my life to count for something good, something that would help other people – so I decided to be a teacher.
I visualized being a high-school English teacher, helping kids to develop reading and language skills, but also looking for ways to use my position of influence to help those same kids make good life choices. I realize now it was idealistic, but it seemed like a worthwhile way to use my one life.
So what I’m about to share with you makes me furious.
I’ve written here before about the National Education Association (NEA), the teachers’ union. Sounds like it would be a very worthwhile, upstanding organization, doesn’t it? Looking out for the long-suffering, hard-working, under-appreciated teachers, right? A support group that would help good teachers become even better, and through them to help generations of bright young Americans become well educated, capable and prosperous citizens of the finest country in the world – is that what you thought the NEA is?
Well, think again.
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